Espinacas Con Garbanzos – A Tapa of Spinach With Chickpeas

At the Sol y Sombra restaurant in Seville which my daughter took me to last week we had ‘garbanzos y espinacas’ – spinach with chickpeas. This is one of my favourite tapas, theirs was good, but I think my addition of cumin makes it even better. For a heartier almost-lunch-inself add hard-boiled eggs. It also brings it a little closer to the Indian spinach and chickpea dish, sag mattar. For more on Seville go here. This is the recipe for espinacas con garbanzos:

For two tapas

1 bunch of washed spinach or about 250g of frozen (even tinned spinach is surprisingly good)

Half a 250g tin of chickpeas – drained. You can use the other half to jazz up a salad

2 fat cloves of garlic

1 slice of good white bread (not the polystyrene sort)

2 teasp sweet smoked paprika

½ teasp cumin (dry fry it – then pound roughly in a pestle and mortar. If nothing else it will make your kitchen smell divine

Olive oil for frying

2 teasp sherry vinegar or balsamic vinegar

Smoked salt

Make sure the spinach, if fresh, is thoroughly washed. If not, even if it looks clean it will have bits of grit and the texture of this dish will be disgusting. It works just as well with frozen or tinned.

In the largest frying pan you have fry the garlic and the paprika – frying the paprika will bring out the flavour and make your kitchen, which is already smelling wonderful due to the pounding of the dry-fried cumin, smell even more enticing

If using fresh spinach, shred it, add it to the frying pan and fry a few minutes until soggy. Otherwise just add the frozen or tinned spinach to the frying pan